Don Brown
Sports writer
Grace White’s steal and lay-in in the final seven seconds of the game gave the Lady Cougars an improbable 30-29 win Thursday night at Breckinridge County.
Grayson County trailed by 15 points with 34 seconds left in the third period, but came roaring back in the fourth quarter to earn the win.
In the first game of the night, the seventh-grade team beat the Tigers, 33-24, to move to 13-1 for the season.
Eighth-grade game
The Lady Tigers had handed Grayson County its first defeat back in the Grayson County Invitational and the Lady Cougars were looking for a little payback.
But for the first three quarters it looked as though Grayson County would absorb its third loss as they played without any fire or cohesiveness.
Breck (13-3) scored the first four points of the game before the Lady Cougars (10-2) got on the board. The lead then changed hands twice before the Tigers scored then last six points of the period to lead by five, 10-5 heading into the second quarter.
The Lady Cougars then proceeded to go scoreless in the second period. They were 0-for-10 from the field and committed four turnovers in the period. The good news was the Lady Tigers could score just four points and despite Grayson County not scoring, they trailed by just nine, 14-5 at the half.
After Breck scored the first four points of the third period to take a 13-point lead, Grayson County responded with six straight to pull back within seven points of the lead, 18-11 with 3:40 left in the period.
But Breck responded with eight unanswered points, including Morgan Marple’s three-pointer with 34.5 seconds left to give the Lady Tigers a seemingly insurmountable 15-point advantage, 26-11.
White was fouled with :08 left and hit 1-of-2 at the line to end the Tiger run and cut the deficit to 14 points, 26-12 as the fourth quarter began.
In the fourth quarter, Grayson County finally came alive and started playing at both ends of the floor. The Lady Cougars forced six turnovers in the period which led directly to eight points. White scored 13 of her game-high 25 points in the period and Allie Horton added five.
White and Horton scored on back-to-back baskets to start the fourth quarter to cut the lead to 10 points, 26-16. White then scored the next nine points, including a three-point play that brought her team to within a point of the lead, 26-25 with 2:14 left to play.
Marple stopped the Cougar run with a 15-footer with 1:21 left to make it 28-25.
Horton then buried a three-pointer with 46 seconds left to tie the game at 28-28. Breck’s Sarah Shrewsbury was fouled with 31.2 seconds left and went to the line for two shots. Shrewsbury missed the first, but made the second to put her team up by a point, 29-28.
Grayson County missed the next shot and the Tigers rebounded the ball and called a timeout with 7.8 seconds remaining. After the play, Cougar coach Lori Oller was hit with a technical foul, presumably for protesting there should have been a foul called following the missed Cougar shot.
With both teams on the sidelines, Tori Lucas went to the foul line to shoot the technical foul shots, but missed both of them to keep the Cougars in the game.
But the Tigers still had possession of the ball, and after the timeout took the ball out of bounds at midcourt. But White was able to deflect the inbounds pass, grab it and take it toward the goal. White slashed in for the winning basket just before the final horn sounded ending the game.
The scoring was easy to tally for the Cougars as White had 25 of the 30 points and Horton had the other five. Shrewsbury had 12 points to lead the Tigers in scoring.
White added five rebounds and four steals on the night. Shannon Smith did not score, but pulled down five rebounds and had two assists and a steal. Horton added a pair of rebounds and three steals to her totals.
Seventh-grade game
Shana Bradley scored five of the Lady Cougar points as they grabbed a 13-5 lead after the first period of play.
Hannah Salsman and Brooke Simpson hit back-to-back threes in the second period to push the Grayson County lead to 14 points, 21-7 with 2:58 left in the first half. They led by 11 points, 21-10 at the half.
Mackenzie Edwards opened the scoring in the third quarter by hitting 1-of-2 at the foul line. Breckinridge County then scored nine unanswered points to pull to within three of the lead, 22-19 with 20 seconds left in the period.
Grace Gorby then stopped the run by burying a three-pointer at the buzzer to push the Grayson County lead back to six points, 25-19 as the fourth quarter got started.
Grayson County opened the fourth quarter with a 6-2 run, including a Salsman three, to increase their lead to 10 points, 31-21 at the 2:58 mark, and the Tigers were never closer than eight points the rest of the way.
Salsman led all scorers with nine points, while Bradley had eight. Gorby scored six points and led the team with seven assists. Edwards added five points, Simpson finished with three and Kaylee Masden had two to complete the Lady Cougar scoring.
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